Known orthopedic devices are used for providing stability, protection, support, rehabilitation and/or unloading a portion of the human anatomy. Known devices, however, are often considered as being physically bulky, heavy, and costly requiring numerous manufacturing processes to be produced.
An example of an orthopedic device is a knee brace. As is well understood, knee braces are widely used to treat a variety of knee infirmities. Such braces may be configured to impart forces or leverage on the limbs surrounding the knee joint to relieve compressive forces within a portion of the knee joint, or to reduce the load on that portion of the knee. If knee ligaments are weak and infirm, a knee brace may stabilize, protect, support, unload, and/or rehabilitate the knee.
The knee is acknowledged as one of the weakest joints in the body and serves as the articulating joint between the thigh and calf muscle groups. The knee is held together primarily by small but powerful ligaments. Knee instability arising out of cartilage damage, ligament strain, and other causes is relatively commonplace since the knee joint is subjected to significant loads during the course of almost any kind of physical activity requiring legs.
A healthy knee has an even distribution of pressure in both its medial and lateral compartments. It is normal for a person with a healthy knee to place a varus moment on the knee when standing so pressure between the medial and lateral compartments is uneven but still natural.
Compartmental osteoarthritis is a problematic type of knee infirmity. It may arise when there is a persistent uneven distribution of pressure in one of the medial and lateral compartments of the knee.
Compartmental osteoarthritis can be caused by injury, obesity, misalignment of the knee, or due to aging of the knee. A major problem resulting from osteoarthritis is that smooth cartilage lining the inside of the knee wears away. This leads to a narrowing of the joint space due to the development of cysts and erosions in the bone ends. Because of the narrowing of the joint, bone comes directly in contact with bone, and an uneven distribution of pressure develops across the knee, which may cause the formation of bone spurs around the joint. All of these changes ultimately lead to increasing pain and stiffness of the joint.
While there are no cures to osteoarthritis, there are many treatments. Individuals who have a diagnosis of isolated lateral or medial compartmental osteoarthritis of the knee are confronted with a variety of treatment options such as medications, surgery, and nonsurgical interventions. Nonsurgical interventions include using canes, lateral shoe wedges, and knee braces.
Knee bracing is useful in providing compartment pain relief by reducing the load on the compartment through applying an opposing external valgus or varus moment about the knee joint. Unloading knee braces have been shown to significantly reduce osteoarthritis knee pain while improving knee function.
While known knee braces succeed at reducing pain or at stabilizing a knee joint, many users find these braces to be bulky, difficult to don, complicated to configure, and uncomfortable to wear. The exemplary embodiments described have streamlined features capable of providing relief for medial or lateral compartmental osteoarthritis, or functional stability of the knee without the attendant drawbacks of known unloading knee braces.
The concepts described with the exemplary knee brace embodiments may be extended to a variety of wearable devices configured to be secured to and/or support numerous portions of anatomy.